Self and Identity Flashcards
Personal self (history)
Locke (1964): separate from soul
Descarte: self created in mind
‘Pop psychology’
Consistent behaviour patterns in the individual
Psychodynamic self
Freud: Id, ego, super ego
Goffman (1959)
Looking at ourselves at observers
Sociological self
Choose object from front and backstage
Social Cognitive self
self-schemas = information, misinformation, associated effect about self
People judge others on what is important to themselves
Dynamic self: Markus & Wurf: pool of self-representations
Social identity theory
you can switch between personal self and collective self (identity and social identity)
Criticisms of social cognitive self
Self concept works differently depending on culture (Markus & Kitayama)
Still too stable a model (Onorato & Turner)
Self not always personal (we can switch to more social)
Self-regulation
alter responses to make them fit with socially desirable standards (DeWall, Baumeister, Mead & Vohs)
Can be actual or intentional
Critical recap on self-regulation
over reliance on questionnaires and laboratories experiments
No social self
Social self
Rom Harré: role of man behind mask overrated, people construct themselves in everyday relations
Burkitt (1991): overlapping social selves
William James (1890)
If people didn’t react to us, we wouldn’t be who we are
Constructed self
Our self is located in interactions. Meets criteria for other cultures.
Materiality
Constructing self through objects (ie my mother used to wear aprons)
Membership Category Analysis
Local management of own an others’ categorisation - not passive.
(ie. what do you do?) - account is situated
3 properties of MCA –> MCD (device)
1) category sets (ie sex, age)
2) categories within sets are inference rich (social knowledge)
3) Members of different categories are expected to represent it.
